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Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Soul Cleanse 29: E is for Embrace

Isn’t it interesting that babies are encouraged to be
plump, but as we get older, we are told to lose the plump? It is expected that
as we get older, the “baby fat” will just melt away like butter.

Guess there’s some butter that decided to be lard
instead.

Soul Cleanse 29: Embrace the shape/skin I’m in now and celebrate any
victories in its’ improvement.

Okay, so the opening is a bit harsh, but this type of
thing isn’t really meant to be sugar coated.

I always like seeing my grandma talk about me to others
as it pertains to when I was a baby.
Sure, sometimes, I get a bit of a blush, since it’s also weird hearing
your grandmother talk about you to someone else when you were a baby. Excerpts would go something like this…

“Monica was one of the most well behaved babies. She was very quiet. I’d put her in the cart and she’d never give
me any fuss while I was shopping. She
smiled a lot. People would just come up
to me because they just liked looking at her, always told me how beautiful she
was.“

I could just see and hear the happiness. I just wish I could have held on to those
words and the feelings associated with them.

When I got out into the world, I realized quickly
everyone did not see beauty in exactly the same way.

My thick hair was seen as nappy.

My strong cheeks were seen as fat.

My deep eyes became bug eyes.

1st grade was my first exposure that the world
didn’t think I was pretty.

It was close
to the end of the day, and everyone was waiting on the buses to arrive. One of my female cousins and her friends had
a reputation for being bullies; relatives were no exception to this rule. They thought my face needed a few
improvements. So, two of the girls held
me down while my cousin decorated my face with makeup. Deem it abstract art mixed with tears. By the time a teacher arrived, the damage had
already been done.

As I got older, it was discovered I was nearsighted and I
needed glasses. Back then, glasses weren’t
nearly as glamorous.

Also, if you were
deemed poor, you didn’t have as many choices in the selection of lenses or
frames.

When I went to the eye doctor,
people could tell which one you were.
People who could afford cool frames could pick directly from the
carousel. People who were dependent on
assistance had to select from a drawer, and the pickings at that time were
slim.

The first pair of glasses I got (back in 3rd
grade) had clear frames. The lenses
weren’t plastic but actual glass, so they were very heavy and I always had to
be careful with them. They were also
big, so it made my cheeks and eyes look bigger than they were. The "four eyed chants" became quite
prevalent. Assistance recipients did not
have the option to get contacts.

As time went on, I was finally able to have glasses
without the glass lenses, but the pickings on the frames were still a bit
slim. One day, I told the optometrist, “Can
you put in a request that poor kids like pretty frames, too?”

I don’t know if it was that one request or if
a lot of people had been requesting it, but a year later, I noticed that
purple, brown, and red frames had been added to the black and white that was
normally in the drawer.

So there was a period of time when I went through my “Sally
Jesse Raphael phase”. I was rocking the
red frames, and although I still got teased, it didn’t impact me as much
because I thought anything was better than the clear ones.

Also, it didn’t help that I developed early…breast wise
that is.

Although guys may find that
fascinating, to a girl at nine years old, it just looks like another layer of
fat. While most of the females around me
were flat, I had to worry about a training bra.
Plus, my baby fat had taken the role of a clingon, so I couldn’t even
shop in the normal section of the store.

Sears, Pretty Plus Area, was where I resided, and although that line has
come a long way, the clothes back then were very ugly. Not fabulous, no chic…just look thrown
together and dumpy.

"Blimp" got added to the adjectives.

In addition, it definitely didn’t help that other female
cousins caused me grief and pain, nor the very rare times my mom did decide to
send me something to wear, it was purposely two sizes too small.

Along that time, I was also feeling a bit of
pressure. 7th grade heading
into the 8th grade. Other
girls were becoming very sophisticated with their hairstyles (getting perms,
finger waves, etc.) while I was still rocking plaits and braids. I wanted to update my look in the hope I
wouldn’t be made fun of as much.

Grandma wanted to help, but most of the hairstylists were
charging a bit more than she could pay out to perm my hair. She heard from one of the neighbors of this
lady who was training to be a cosmetologist and would charge little to nothing
to do my hair. Grandma got the number, made the appointment,
told the lady that I wanted a mild perm put in my hair.

I went to the lady’s house. Now, keep in mind, before this time, I’d
never had any chemicals in my hair. This
fact is very important.

So the lady is doing her work. I’m noticing what she is putting in my hair
smells very bad, but I am thinking it’s just part of the process…so I don’t say
anything.

Needless to say, I was absolutely horrified when I saw
that my hair had been transformed into a Jheri Curl instead of the perm that
was requested.

I screamed, and I cried.
I really was going to be the laughing stock now. The torture would be worse than when my hair
was in its’ natural state.

The lady was scared out of her wits. I guess she hadn’t been trained on how to
handle a very ticked off Grandmother who had just gotten dropped back off from
grocery shopping to see the results and a very distraught 13 year old.

“I can fix this,” she assured us.

Her fix was to try to vigorously wash and condition my
hair and put the perm that should have been in my hair on top of my curl
processed hair.

Side Note: If anyone in cosmetology school even acts like
she can fix a mistake like this by putting another process on top of it,
run. Or better yet, tell the instructor she
needs to be retrained.

Yes, for the first week or so, my hair appeared fine, but
then it started coming out. Not just a
little bit at a time, but lots of strands at once. I didn’t have the confidence to rock my hair
short. Long was the thing. Permed was the thing.

For this, Grandma saved up the money and took me to a
professional. The professional, who
later became my permanent hairdresser from then until I went off to college,
instructed us my hair needed time to grow and get healthy ; she wasn’t
comfortable with putting a perm back in my hair until it got healthier. She did give a solution---to put braids in my
hair. I had never had them, but I would
give them a try.

I didn’t fully appreciate how ahead of the curve I was
when I got my wavy braids. I liked them
and thought they were nice; others didn’t—teased me for not having real hair.

Even when I started not appearing as flabby, it was hard
for me to truly see the beauty.

A few of the people I was in relationships with made it
hard for me to see the beauty as well.
One in particular nitpicked at everything, from what I wore, to how it
made me look. I felt like I was being
bullied and teased all over again.

But all of these things I went through showed me I had to
find the beauty within myself. Yes, it
helps when others, especially those close to you, believe you are beautiful,
too.

But I have to be my greatest cheerleader, my greatest supporter.

I had to be by myself, after my last (and longest) relationship
to get to this place, but I am glad I have arrived.

To embrace myself where I am, rather than get
stuck on who I was back then. I can’t
get caught up on whether I can recapture my figure in high school. I’d rather celebrate where I’m at now, for
how I treat myself now can ensure how things will be for me in the future.